Angelo hated it beneath the Halt. If evil was contagious, as Angelo believed it to be, then the Halt was riddled with it. He remembered the pride in Lucas Scale’s voice when he had first shown them what lay beneath the grand old house. He had taken them down the same dimly lit stairwell they walked in now, leading them to a secure unit, aptly named the Chamber of the Wolf, where the project’s first lycanthrope had been housed in the 1960s.

Scale had provided Angelo and Vincent with a history of the Halt; a kind of lesson in evil. He said the building had been exposed to centuries of wickedness, all adding to the atmosphere of violent malevolence.

“The Halt was commissioned by Sir Henry Horwood in the early eighteenth century,” Scale had droned. “The site was deliberately chosen because of the Paleolithic caves inside the hill. Sir Henry’s architect was able to join the house to the caves.”

“Sounds like he had a lot to hide,” remarked Angelo.

Scale grinned, showing all his snaggly teeth. “Indeed. A devil worshipper of some notoriety, I believe.”

“Sounds like a real prince,” snarled Vincent.

Scale ignored him. “The architect found that the caves were littered with dismembered skeletons.” He chuckled. “Apparently the early cave dwellers had been cannibals.”

“Nice.” Angelo winced.

The twins had also learned that staff numbers at the Halt were at an all-time low, due to many of the original staff having been eaten. Some of the “residents” — creatures that had been studied in the first project — had successfully replaced them. This suited Gabriel Gruber, because he didn’t have to pay them, keeping him well within his governmental budget.

The Home Office, which was the government office in charge of Proteus, left the running of the project to Gabriel Gruber now that Paxton was out of the picture. World events of the past few years had dictated a need for the type of monster that Gabriel was trying to create. Certain sections of the British government wholeheartedly agreed that Indestructible Warriors were the way forward, and they weren’t too worried about how it happened, as long as nobody could blame it on them.

The twins reached their destination and removed their polarized sunglasses, revealing eyes the color of molten lava. “Here we go, bro,” said Vincent. “Whatever he says, just agree with him.”

Angelo nodded nervously. Although he was a werewolf, and built like a Sherman tank, he was so scared of Gabriel Gruber that he had trouble concentrating whenever he was in the same room. Vincent waved his magnetic pass at the door. It opened silently, revealing two people already settled around the table. Gabriel beamed at them expansively, his handsome face hectic with glee.

“Gentlemen,” Gabriel Gruber proclaimed with a nod, “better late than never.”

Scale sat on Gruber’s right, a smirk hanging off his raddled face.